Not guilty ruling in 2 van killings

Judge says prosecutors failed to prove case

James Ousley pumped a fist as he was found not guilty Tuesday in last summer's fatal mob attack in the Oakland neighborhood, acquitted by a judge who said a lack of physical evidence and questions about the account of the lone eyewitness against Ousley added up to reasonable doubt.

At a welcome-home party later Tuesday night, shortly after he was released from jail, Ousley told about three dozen supporters that his freedom was "a rush."

"I never did anything. ... " he said. "I'm just glad God got me all the way through."

Earlier on Tuesday, about two dozen friends and family members rushed from the courtroom of Judge James Egan as they tried to maintain their composure and then burst into shouts of joy in the hallway outside.

Ousley--the last of eight first-degree murder defendants in the vigilante murders to have his case resolved--grabbed his lawyer, Sam Adam Jr., in a bear hug.

"I cannot say [Ousley] is an innocent man--if the burden of proof was actual innocence, this would have been an easy case to determine," Egan said in handing down his verdict. "But at this point I can't find that the state has met its burden."

That was enough for Cornell Ousley, the defendant's brother. He had worked the streets for days last year to find witnesses to testify his brother was not at the corner of 40th Street and Lake Park Avenue when a van struck a group of women on a stoop and its driver and passenger were slain.

Driver Jack Moore and passenger Anthony Stuckey were dragged from the vehicle and kicked and bludgeoned with concrete by an enraged mob on July 30, 2002.

"I wanted to make sure my brother left this place," Ousley said wiping tears from his eyes. "He didn't have a thing to do with this, period."

Tests of James Ousley's shoes found no evidence of either victim's blood. He and his lawyers contended throughout his weeklong trial that he was up the street with friends when the crash took place, was not there in time for the beatings and was only arrested after refusing to leave the side of one of the injured women. Seven friends, including two co-defendants, testified for Ousley, who also testified in his own defense Tuesday.

The state's case had hung on the testimony of Cheryle Britt, a witness who heard the crash from her 13th-floor apartment across the street and then watched from her window as Moore, 62, and Stuckey, 49, were attacked. She named several men eventually convicted in the case, and while Egan called her a hero for coming forward at all, he found a hole in her description of events.

She testified that when she came downstairs, Ousley, 30, was on her side of the street laughing about what he allegedly had done and mimicking parts of the beating for a friend. All the other witnesses in the case, including two police officers who arrived within a minute of the attack and testified for the state, said Ousley stayed at the scene.

"They basically have Mr. Ousley in their sights," the judge said of the officers. "They were clearing the scene and trying to help people who were injured and he wouldn't leave."

Adam had argued that point in his closing statement.

"She simply picks the wrong person," Adam said. "She goes downstairs and sees the person she is sure did the beating laughing and joking, but it couldn't be James Ousley, he was on the west side of the street."

Ousley was comforting one of the women, Shani Lawrence, a former girlfriend who later died of her injuries.

From there, the state's case was illogical, Adam argued. If Ousley were guilty, he wouldn't have resisted police orders to leave the steps: "Would a man who just committed a double homicide not leave when police just told him to skedaddle?"

Ousley was the second of the eight defendants to be acquitted on all charges in the case. In March, 16-year-old Antonio Fort was found not guilty by a jury. In January, another jury had found 21-year-old Lamont Motes not guilty of murder, but guilty of aggravated battery in the case. Earlier this summer the other five defendants had pleaded guilty to lesser charges, including one second-degree murder plea.

As in the earlier jury trials, prosecutors called the situation a case of cowards and courage. Ousley's family, friends and neighbors first cloaked him in silence by refusing to tell police what had happened, then some of them lied for him during his trial, prosecutors said.

Only Britt had the courage to name names in the case, Assistant State's Atty. Mercedes Luque-Rosales said.

Prosecutors said Ousley had damaged himself with his own words, saying to another man in a police lockup that there was no way police had seen him jumping on anyone because he got off one victim when he heard sirens. In saying how close the case was for Ousley, Egan noted that when emergency crews arrived, Ousley yelled at them for checking on Moore and Stuckey, indicating Ousley was not clueless about what had transpired.